Tears of the Sun

Tears of the Sun (2003) is about a special forces team sent to extract a doctor from Nigeria. There has been a coup and ethnic killing has begun. Lieutenant Waters and his team are to collect an American doctor from a mission hospital; the order is explicit, her only. Doctor Kendricks refuses to leave her patients. Waters deceives her onto the helicopter and, once airborne, sees the village burning. Against orders he turns back and starts an escape on foot toward the border, with nearly seventy civilians. The question at the centre is the difference between orders and conscience. The moment Waters decides he risks his career and his men's lives, and the film does not give it easy approval. Antoine Fuqua directed, his film after Training Day. Bruce Willis and Monica Bellucci star. The jungle sequences were shot in Hawaii. The most criticised aspect is the point of view: a genocide in Africa is told through American soldiers' moral choice and the local characters are given almost no dialogue. Hans Zimmer wrote the score. The firefights are staged realistically: long distances, unseen targets, and nobody dying heroically. A village raid is very graphic and sets the tone of the film. It did moderately. It runs 121 minutes. Good for: military drama, moral dilemmas, and combat sequences. Less good for: the violence is very graphic and the film uses Africa as a backdrop.